So "Dr. Terror's House of Horrors" was one of the first (maybe the first?) anthology film delivered by the Amicus company.....a company formed by American ex-pats doing business in England in the 60s and 70s. They produced several other anthology films as well, such as "Asylum" and "From Beyond the Grave." This one's from 1965, directed by Freddie Francis, and features Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, and Donald Sutherland, of all people. You'll recognize Michael Gough in it, too.
There are five stories held together by the glue of five people riding on a train with the good doctor, played by Cushing, and his tarot deck. At 98 minutes running time, none of the stories wears out its welcome, but I have to admit this was not one of my fave anthology films....and I do likes me some anthology films. Probably goes back to my childhood love of "Night Gallery." None of the individual stories is really that great, and the fourth one is a direct remake of "The Beast with Five Fingers." There's nothing really bad here......just......well, it rates a "meh." Some of the settings are nice to look at; there, I said something positive.
There's never been a Region 1 DVD release of this, and now Olive Films has released this Region A Blu-ray. The absence of the film in America probably helps build up a "this is gonna be great!" feeling, that sadly, doesn't really happen. Nice to have to complete an Amicus collection and for Cushing and Lee, surely.
I couldn't find the trailer, but here's a segment from the third story....a sort of goofy voodoo story.
No comments:
Post a Comment